Emily Lake
by rustyliver
Summary: People tell her that she is Emily Lake. She has read the journals. She is not Emily Lake. Not exactly.
1. The Lake Identity

AN: This ignores most of season 3. So it's AU. Every time I watch Emily Lake I get so frustrated because H.G. wouldn't have gotten kidnapped so easily. She would have kicked Marcus and Jinks' asses. So, what if? Then this came out and I couldn't stop.

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><p>Her name is Emily Lake. She is an English teacher at the Lincoln High School in Cheyenne, Wyoming. She speaks funny according to her students. But she's an adult so juvenile jabs like that hardly bother her.<p>

Except it does. Because she can't explain it. According to her social worker, she was born and raised in England until she was eleven when her parents got divorced and her American mother decided to move the two of them back to her hometown in Missouri.

It is possible that during that time her accent got mixed up and she talks funny now. She can't ask her mother about that because she died when Emily was twenty three.

Nine months ago, she was offered a permanent position at Lincoln. She accepted it even though it meant moving 800 miles from her home. The plane she was in crashed and she was the only survivor. There were newspaper clippings of it. The media covered it extensively for three months. Then the public got bored of waiting for the miracle survivor to wake up. So by the time Emily regained consciousness, they had stopped caring and moved on with their lives.

All of her close friends moved away right after college and she had no living relatives left so it took a while before someone noticed she was missing. And by then, she was already sent to Cheyenne because that was her most recent address.

When she woke up, her old apartment in Rolla was already leased to someone else and since she was only a substitute teacher, her previous employer was not obligated to take her back. In Cheyenne, however, the position for her in Lincoln was still open somehow and coincidentally, no one wanted to rent her apartment so the landlord gave it to her.

Her friend, Jennifer came to visit two days after she woke up. Emily could not recognize her. She did not feel even a smidge of familiarity despite her claim that she was her 'best friend'. Jen, as she liked to be called, convinced her to stay in Cheyenne.

"You've always wanted to get out of Rolla anyway," she had told her.

And since she had no memory of ever saying that, she had to take Jen's word for it.

Frankly, it all seemed a little too convenient for her. It was like someone really wanted for her to stay in Cheyenne and had gone through a lot of trouble to make it happen. But when you don't have a home, wherever you are tends to grow on you.

So here she is, teaching Shakespeare to a bunch of kids who think that the greatest piece of literature is the _Twilight_ series. Okay, there are some rare ones who read _Romeo and Juliet_ instead of watching the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. They make her feel like this life she can't remember choosing is worth living. And according to the recent pole in the school newspaper, she is the student body's fifth favorite teacher.

Her students clearly love her. And she likes them. She doesn't hate her life. She has a home. A friend who makes it a point to check on her everyday even though she is some big shot security consultant in D.C. And a cat. What more could she ask for?

She read her journals from before the accident. That is how Emily Lake should feel about her life.

The problem is she doesn't feel that way. She always has this sinking feeling like she is meant for more. There is this voice in the back her head that keeps telling her, "Do something about it."

But do what? The only thing she knows is that she feels out of place. What do you do about that? Move again? Jen thinks it's a bad idea.

"No one feels like they belong when they've been living in a new place for only four months," she had said to her the night before. "Give Cheyenne another few months. I'm sure you'll like it"

Jen tells her how she feels a lot. It annoys her but she is her only link to Emily Lake and she isn't sure if she wants to be anyone else right now. Feeling out of place is one thing. But having no identity is a different matter entirely.

So for now, she accepts that this is her life.

...

Journal Emily gets excited when she gets her paycheck every month. She puts three little hearts next to the date in her journals.

The present Emily pretends like it is a big deal because her doctor told her that following her usual routine would help her remember. Her old journals have now become a manual on how to be Emily Lake. She sees how weird that is. She's Emily Lake. Why in the world does she have to learn how to be Emily Lake?

"Everyone! On the floor now!" someone suddenly yells.

There are two men, both waving a gun around. She follows their instructions. And so does everyone else.

Emily has never seen a gun in her life, let alone watch someone actually use it. She is supposed to be terrified but she isn't. Instead she wants to fight them. But after surviving a near death situation, she figures she shouldn't be taunting Death.

Everything is going well for the robbers. Everyone is being cooperative. No one tries to be a hero. But then the police arrives which puts them in the awkward position of having to choose a hostage to ensure their safe exit.

She closes her eyes and wishes very hard that it isn't her. She prays, because Journal Emily prayed, for the poor soul who is going to be chosen.

And when someone yanks her from the floor, she realizes that she has been praying for herself. Her prayers are immediately answered as she finds herself disarming Robber 1 and knocking him unconscious with just two moves and shooting Robber 2's gun-holding hand before he can do anything about it. A customer who is lying close to Robber 2 kicks the gun away from him and then another helpful customer tackles him from behind, immobilizing him from taking any further actions.

The room is spinning a little. It may have been due the second move which involved making a semi-circle with her leg to maximize the power of her kick. Or maybe it's because she has read all of Emily Lake's journals and not one of them mentioned learning martial arts.

As ten or so microphones are shoved into her face, it occurs to her that she might not be Emily Lake after all.

...

It has been a week since the bank incident. Emily's ranking in the favorite teacher pole has risen to number two. One of the newspaper kid told her she will take first place by next week.

Everyone knows her name now. Everywhere she goes, there will be people greeting her or thanking her because their brother/friend/wife was in the bank that day. Yesterday, a little girl asked for her autograph.

They think she is a hero. She'd be lying if she says it doesn't make her feel good about herself. Actually, it makes her feel great. Awesome, even. She feels like she can do anything.

She tells this to Jen.

"You're not thinking of doing something stupid, are you?" her friend asks.

"No, Jen. It's the first time I feel good about myself in the last two months and I thought I'd share it with my _best_ friend. But clearly, you're not interested in my happiness."

She hangs up.

Jen calls her again. Emily lets it go to voice mail. Jen has to call five times before Emily picks up her phone.

She doesn't swear for some reason. But when she picks up, she says, "Hello asshole."

Jen apologizes. "I'm just so worried about you," she says. "I mean they had guns. What if you got hurt?"

"Well, I'm fine now, aren't I?"

"That's what I'm worried about."

Emily sighs. She doesn't know what to say to her friend. She can't promise not to do something that Jen would classify as stupid. She just knows that if she ever finds a clue to whomever she was, Emily Lake or not, she would follow it until she could make sense of herself.

She hasn't had a plan yet. "I'm not planning on doing anything stupid," she says finally. It _is_ the truth for now. It might change tomorrow but Jen doesn't need to know that.

"Okay."

"Okay?" she asks. "You're not going to interrogate me more?"

Jen chuckles. "Lucky for you I have a meeting with a client. But I am coming to visit you this weekend."

"It's midnight," Emily says, ignoring completely Jen's last sentence.

"It's two o'clock actually. And I see what you did there. Don't think it's going to stop me from coming."

"Yes, it makes so much sense to have a meeting at two in the morning."

"It is 10 a.m. somewhere, right?"

"I hate your job. You should hate it too."

"Yeah," Jen says. Emily imagines her shrugging at the other end. "I'll see you in two days?"

"Bye, mom."

Jen laughs and says goodbye.

She is a good friend, Emily thinks. Not a nosy bitch at all, she tries to convince herself.

...

Emily meets them at the airport. Them, as in more than one person.

Jen called her this morning, telling her that she will be bringing an associate because apparently she has a very important presentation to prepare by Monday and she can't do it without her colleague. Emily told her to just cancel her trip.

"And miss my chance to collect more air miles?" which is a stupid reason because she has millions of them. "We will be staying at a hotel. Don't worry."

"Good. Because my apartment can't fit three people."

It is clear to Emily that she can't talk Jen out of it but at least it means she will not have to be around Jen for the whole of the next forty eight hours. That is good enough for her.

The name of Jen's colleague is Michelle Williams. She actually looks quite familiar. Emily asks her if they have met before.

"I don't think so," Michelle says.

"You're thinking of the actress," Jen tells her.

"That happens a lot actually," Michelle says, smiling at her.

"Oh, there was this client we had once," Jen says excitedly, "who thought he was meeting Michelle the actress. You should have seen his face when our Michelle here introduced herself."

"He looked so disappointed," Michelle adds.

"Why?" Emily asks.

They both laugh.

"You're serious?" asks Jen when it is clear that she doesn't get the joke.

"Amnesia, remember?"

"It's because—" Jen tries to explain.

"Besides," Emily says, cutting her off, "whoever this other Michelle is, she can't possibly be more beautiful than you."

Michelle blushes. Jen looks surprised by her statement. She is too because she doesn't remember Journal Emily showing any interest towards women.

...

She wakes up with a menacing headache. It feels like a truck ran over her head.

After she picked them up at the airport, Jen insisted on going for drinks. She remembers dancing and lots and lots of drinking. Everything else is a blur to her.

She drags herself to the kitchen. She hears some sizzling. What happened last night? She hopes it isn't what she is thinking. She creeps into the kitchen and sees Michelle breaking an egg into the skillet that has been collecting dust in the cabinet.

"Good morning, stranger," Michelle says without looking.

"Morning," Emily replies. "Did…did we?"

Michelle laughs which does not answer her question.

"Although I am very flattered by the sweet nothings you whispered to me last night," Michelle says, grinning.

"Oh, lord," she rubs her forehead.

Michelle continues, "unfortunately, I am seeing someone."

Suddenly, she isn't feeling so mortified anymore. She is disappointed.

"So," she tries to sound as casual as possible, "tell me about…"

"Her," Michelle helpfully adds.

"Yes, her. What is she like? I need to know my competition."

Michelle breaks another egg in the skillet. She appears to be contemplating Emily's request.

"Come on," Emily says. "At least I'll know I haven't lost you to some jerk. Unless, she is one. Then I will readily kick her butt for you."

Michelle chuckles. "I do not recommend that. She knows Kenpo."

"Well, I have some sick moves too."

"I heard."

"Jen told you?" Emily asks. Where is she anyway?

"She did. It was stupid but still quite impressive."

Emily quirks her eyebrow. "Does this mean—"

"No, I do not find you more attractive."

She clutches her chest, "You sure know how to make a girl feel wanted."

"Who wants who?" someone interrupts their conversation. And there Jen is, leaning against the door frame.

"No one," she and Michelle say at the same time.

Jen looks at her and then Michelle. She squints. "Something's going on." She shakes her head. "Doesn't matter. Coffee," she demands.

It is like magic how coffee transforms Jen from speaking in short and barely coherent sentences to long sentences with a bunch of jargon Emily doesn't understand and doesn't care to remember.

"You're not doing your work here, are you?" Emily asks them. "I thought you were going to stay at a hotel."

"But we're here now," Jen says like it means something.

"I have work too, you know," Emily stresses.

"What? Putting ticks and circling words on paper?"

"Hey!" Emily exclaims. "My job is important. I shape the young minds who grow up to be those paranoid rich bastards," she cringes internally, "who make up your entire client base."

She looks apologetically at Michelle. Michelle just shrugs.

"So you love your job?" Jen asks.

"Yes," she admits without thinking.

"My next question is," Jen says, her tone no longer harsh and mocking, "why would you want to leave it?"

...

Emily was the one who ended up leaving the apartment. Her various attempts at annoying Jen did not work. So she went to the local library to get her work done. Her apartment cannot hold three people who each had mountains of papers of their own. After she marked almost half of Michelle's report on some state of the art burglar alarm, she gave up.

She is currently taking a break. There is only so much comparison between _Romeo and Juliet_ and _Twilight_ a person can take in two hours. She blames no one but herself. She brilliantly assigned her students the task of comparing the popular Shakespeare's work with a piece of modern literature of their choice.

There is a coffee shop opposite the library. She is a regular there as evidenced by a picture of her that they have put up on the wall behind the counter after her act of heroism (or stupidity. It depends on who you ask) last week. She also gets fifteen percent off her order now.

But that's not the main reason why she goes there. Every Saturday, there is this old man who orders an iced coffee and talks to whoever is willing to listen. He is American but every time he sees Emily he will start speaking in an English accent. She keeps telling him that she is also American but ten seconds later, he forgets.

He will tell the same story each week. About how he was in the army and how he was involved in an explosion that caused him to lose half his 'smarts'. But because he is very good at following orders, they still keep him for maintenance work at the army base until he retired. He always beams proudly at how he had managed to remain in the army even with his disability.

He isn't here today. She wonders if it's one of the rare Saturdays when his wife wants to spend the day with him. She chases him out of their house every Saturday morning so she could do her chores in peace according to him.

"Hi, stranger."

Emily looks up. It's Michelle.

"Did Jen kick you out too?" she asks.

"We're on a break," Michelle tells her. "Actually, I'm on a break. Jen doesn't know."

"What did you tell her?"

"I didn't tell her anything. I jumped out the window."

"That bad, huh?"

Michelle tries hard to hide her grin but then Emily smiles causing the grin to break out.

She feels comfortable around Michelle.

"Are you sure we've never met before?" she asks her.

"I think I'd remember," Michelle says.

Emily later manages to get some information on Michelle's mysterious girlfriend.

The Girlfriend (Michelle doesn't want to reveal her name for some reason) acts like she's 150. She has traveled to every corner of the world. She is an inventor which according to Michelle can be annoying because she sometimes takes apart house appliances for parts but the bright side is she can fix things. She is also English.

"I can't beat that," she says disappointedly.

Michelle laughs. When she laughs, she doesn't stifle her laughter. She laughs like she has just heard the funniest joke in the world. All teeth. Like a toothpaste commercial.

"I give up," Emily announces. But truthfully, she gave up after Michelle told her about the time she and her girlfriend went to Russia to save their boss. The Girlfriend almost froze to death in the process. But even in that state, she managed to shoot a chain from ten feet away, freeing their boss.

She sounds like a female Indiana Jones while Emily is a high school teacher who has barely traveled within the country. She doesn't even have a passport. Compared to The Girlfriend, she is unremarkable.

"Now that we've delved deep into my life, how about you?"

"I'm a teacher."

"That's it?"

"Pretty much," Emily says. "I can't remember much else."

"What do you remember?"

"Books. Accurate details about books from before the twentieth century. I remember exact sentences from them. But my high school graduation? I can't remember it at all."

"It must be tough for you. Is that why you're thinking of quitting your job?"

Emily rolls her eyes. "That's what Jen thinks I'm thinking of doing."

"And Jen is wrong?"

She shakes her head. "Jen is not right. I don't know. I haven't thought it through yet."

She stirs her tea pointlessly. One of the few things she has in common with Journal Emily is their preference for tea instead of coffee.

Michelle doesn't say anything or ask her to elaborate further. She waits patiently for her next words but Emily doesn't feel pressured to blurt out what she is thinking right away. Michelle's gentle eyes tell her that it is okay. She is here to listen or not listen. She isn't going anywhere.

"Do you ever feel like you don't know who you are? Even without amnesia, I mean, there must be once or twice that you do something that surprises you so much, you wonder, how did that happen?"

When Michelle doesn't answer right away, she asks if the experience is only unique to amnesiacs.

"No," she says quickly. "I'm just gathering my thoughts for a bit. It's a difficult question to answer."

Then she goes on to tell her that she once quit her job.

"Why did you come back?" Emily asks. "From Jen's stories, your job sounds like a nightmare. Not the filled with monsters kind. More along the lines of having to do a mundane task repeatedly for eternity."

Michelle chuckles. "My job is very different from Jen. I'm mostly on the field. It's just this one presentation that we need to work on together."

"I'm glad," Emily smiles, "for your soul."

Michelle snorts. She covers her mouth immediately. Her mouth is full of one of those fancy coffees and she is trying hard not to spray it all over Emily.

When she finally pulls herself together, she goes on to explain how someone she trusted had betrayed her and endangered the people she loved. She managed to talk them down and everything turned out fine but she couldn't trust her judgment anymore. And in her line of work, she needs to make choices that sometimes involve life and death. So she quit her job, thinking that her team would be better off without her.

"What changed your mind?" Emily asks.

"Believe it or not," she looks down at her fancy coffee, "it's the same person who drove me to quit in the first place."

"So, are you telling me I shouldn't quit?"

She smiles but it isn't one of her usual smiles. Emily can't see a single tooth. And Michelle's eyes…she has never understood how people can smile with their eyes but she does now.

"I'm telling you that, if you love something, it will draw you back. It doesn't matter how far you've left it or how long. It will be there when you're ready."

...

She cannot even begin to explain what just happened.

There was shouting. Yes. When she came home, she heard shouting. She had two bags of Thai takeout for dinner. She remembers because she had to balance them with her briefcase.

"So you're just going to let them do it to her again? She's a person!"

"You've seen her. H.G. Wells is still in there."

"She is not Helena. Not really. The last time I checked, the real H.G. Wells is still in the Janus Coin."

"Even so, there is still a risk of—"

"You made a person. You played God. And now you decide she isn't what you wanted her to be so you're going to erase her. That's murder. If you do this, Emily Lake will die."

That was when she dropped everything in her arms and hands. There were papers flying everywhere. Some of the food containers broke soiling her briefcase and the essays that failed to escape. She remembers thinking her students will not be happy about that.

But then she realized that the shouting had stopped. She heard footsteps rushing to the door.

So she ran. She ran faster than she has ever run before.

Someone called out her name. She didn't turn around. She was too afraid to.

She headed for the basement parking where her car was. Then she remembered that her keys were in her briefcase. She can't go far without it but she can't go back to her apartment and risk possibly getting killed either.

So she hid.

"Emily!" it was Michelle, her voice echoing throughout the basement. "Let's talk, okay? What you heard, it's not as bad as it sounds."

She wanted to yell back at her that the word 'murder' pretty much explained it all. There was no way that they could talk it out and agree that it was okay for her to die. But she bit her tongue, hoping that Michelle won't find her there and try to look for her elsewhere so she could make her escape.

Michelle was getting warmer. Emily held her breath for fear that even the slightest sound would give away her hiding place.

Michelle stopped right next to the car she was hiding behind. She slowly crept to the next car. The one that Michelle was facing away from.

But she turned as soon as Emily was between the cars.

"Emily," she said, her eyes cold.

Emily stood. Michelle had already seen her.

Her hand was holding this weird looking gun. "This might hurt a b—"

A burst of electricity hit Michelle, rendering her unconscious. Emily looked to the source. It was Jen.

"Come on," she said, her hand jiggling Emily's keys.

When Emily didn't move, she added, "Come with me if you want to live."

As Emily opened the door to the passenger seat, she heard her mutter, "Pete would have loved that."

...

She is now in the old man's house and guess what? He doesn't actually have a wife.

His name is Hugo Miller.

He no longer speaks to her with an English accent after Leena, Jen's real name, told him to stop.

"How many times do I have to tell you?" she had said. "She is not H.G. Wells."

"It's a shame that such a brilliant mind is confined to a coin. Nevertheless, it begs the question. What makes a person?" he says, looking curiously at Emily. He is standing uncomfortably close to her.

"Leave her alone Hugo," Leena warns.

"Do you know that every time a person recalls a memory, the memory changes?" Hugo asks, ignoring her. "It could be the emotional aspect. It could be in the detail. Anyway, something changes and it depends on the situation of the recall. So if someone were to say, manipulate the situation," the way he is currently looking at her is penetrating, "you could be living your life based on lies."

"Hugo!" Leena exclaims.

"What is going on? And why do you keep mentioning H.G. Wells?" she asks, frantically looking between them.

The drive to Hugo's home was quiet. She only knew that Jen was Leena when Hugo greeted them. Other than that, she knows nothing about the situation she is in.

"It doesn't matter," Leena says.

Hugo disagrees. "It does matter," he says.

"Oh, you just want to test her for your organic hard drive," Leena says exasperatedly.

"Damn it!" Emily cries out. She doesn't even realize that she just cursed and when she does, she doesn't feel even the least bit mortified. "Stop," she inhales deeply, "stop talking over me and start talking to me."

...

They explained to her how she used to be someone else who did something really bad. And as punishment, they stored her consciousness in a coin. The Janus coin, they called it. It left her still alive body unoccupied so they built a new person for that body.

And that person is her. Emily Lake.

"Wow," she said. "I can't believe this. I used to be H.G. Wells. But how about my sudden knowledge of martial arts? You said they wiped out everything?"

"We don't know," Leena answered.

"But we can find out," Hugo interjected.

"No, Hugo. She's not a lab rat."

"It's really up to her." Hugo looked at her, eyes full of hope.

"I…" she wasn't sure if she wanted more answers. They seemed to confuse her more. "I have to think about it."

"Well, you'll have to think about it on the road," Leena said. "It's not safe for you here."

Ever since then, she has been moving from one place to another. The only constant in her life is Hugo. He is still trying to study her but now, he has developed a fatherly affection towards her. It happened sometime after he ran into his old flame. One Vanessa Calder who rejected him for another man. He was devastated and told her that it is obviously too late for him to have children. So even though she is supposed to be decades older than him, he treats her like a daughter.

They see each other every six months or so.

Leena, however, has not shown up on her radar ever since that day.

Emily found out from Michelle that she was doing fine. That was about two years ago. She keeps running into Michelle. That woman really wants her dead. She told the Regents, the people who were after her, that Emily was the one who shot her. The good news is Leena was not blamed for her disappearance. The bad news is they are still chasing her.

That day at the coffee shop, she wanted to prove that Emily was not that different from H.G. Wells and she was as dangerous as the psychopathic author. Michelle purposely described Wells to her to get her to admit their similarities. Instead, she only saw how different they were. Then she tried to get Emily to leave Wyoming and she got what she wanted, just not the way she expected.

"You did my job for me," Michelle had said to her. That day she discovered another smile she never thought she would see across Michelle's face. A wicked one. "I didn't have enough to get them to even wipe you. Now, they don't care if I bring you to them dead or alive. And it's all because you ran. You see, innocent people don't run."

She wants to stop running but it is far too late for that. They have already associated her with H.G. Wells. When they look at her, they see Wells' sins, not the fact that she hasn't done anything wrong. It is the age old question; if you could go back in time and kill the child Hitler, would you? And it seems their answer is yes.

She also keeps coming across 'artifacts'. That is what they call things like the Janus Coin. Two out of three times when Michelle catches up to her is because of an artifact. She knows this but she can't stop herself from helping the people who are affected by an artifact.

But if she hadn't cared, she would have never met Myka.

Emily met her about six months ago.

She almost mistook Myka for Michelle. And since Myka looked so much like her arch nemesis, Emily had expected resentment from her. Instead, what she saw in Myka's eyes was love. Tears were pooling in them. And for a second, she thought Myka was going to hug her. But it was a difficult task to execute as they were both pointing a gun at each other.

Even so, Myka smiled. "Destined to meet at gunpoint," she muttered and lowered her gun.

Emily, still wary, held her gun where it was.

"Aren't you afraid of me?" she asked.

"Why should I?"

"You work for the Warehouse, don't you?"

Myka nodded.

"Aren't you all afraid that I might inherit the homicidal tendencies of a certain famous author?"

"So kill me now," said Myka nonchalantly.

She looked right into Emily's eyes. She didn't show even the slightest of fear. It was like she trusted Emily not to shoot her. She even went further by holstering her gun.

Emily lowered her own gun.

"You don't remember me at all, do you?" Myka asked. "I knew you existed but I didn't think…wow."

"Did you know her?"

"Who?"

"H.G. Wells," said Emily.

"I did," Myka replied. "Quite well, actually."

"So why aren't you afraid of me?"

"You tell me," Myka said. "I don't even know you."

After that first meeting, she tried to find out everything she can about Myka. It turns out that she is Michelle's sister. Looking into Myka's background had inadvertently lead to some revelations about Michelle whose real name is Tracy. Apparently, Wells became quite close to Myka at some point only to betray her by trying to end the world. And Tracy, being the protective big sister, thinks that every single trace of Wells should be destroyed and that includes Emily.

She no longer avoids artifacts now because she knows it is her best chance to see Myka again. It has not worked so far. Instead of Myka, she kept running into Tracy.

But she keeps trying anyway.

Myka saw something in her that no one else did. She is sick of everyone telling her that she will turn into a homicidal maniac. She wants a different perspective and she thinks Myka can give that to her.

So no matter how many times Tracy tries to kill her, she will keep on trying to find Myka.


	2. The Uncertainty Principle

Summary: People tell her that she is insane and her whole life is a lie. Artifacts do not exist and she isn't some famous author from the nineteenth century. But when someone goes missing in the dead of night, she is brought closer to the truth of how she ended up in this mental hospital.

Warning: Mention of suicide

AN: This came after watching all episodes of Dirk Gently in one go. I don't plan for it to be a whole story. If anything, it's a series of one-shots that might or might not be related.

* * *

><p>She heard it. The scream. At precisely 3.29 this morning. Not everyone heard it. Those who didn't, it was because of their medication or their catatonic state. She should have been one of those. But after two weeks living here, she learned not to swallow. Her tongue is quite flexible it seems.<p>

She has not slept for three days, or is it five? Apparently, the mind does not remember too well with lack of sleep.

Sudden screams are common here. There is an average of ten random screams daily. But this scream is different. Not because of its tone or intensity. She thinks it's different because there is someone missing.

She isn't sure who it is. They are one of those people that never cross your mind until you see them and then you think I saw them yesterday. And her sleep deprived state might have something to do with it.

"Did someone get discharged?" she asks Dr Baker during their therapy session.

"No," Dr Baker replies. "Why do you ask?"

"I think someone is missing."

"Can you tell me about him," Dr Baker pauses, looking at her for some kind of sign that she is using the right pronoun, "or her?"

"I don't know," she says. "It's a feeling, like, there is a certain emptiness when I was in the common room."

"Is it Myka?" Dr Baker asks.

She has only seen Myka once and she regrets telling Dr Baker about it. It seems to have excited the doctor as it adds another symptom to her madness.

"No," she answers simply.

Thinking that she is a whole other person who is not Emily Lake is already providing ample material for Dr Baker's next book. She doesn't want to provide more.

Dr Baker is disappointed but she tries to hide it with that artificial smile Helena has seen too many times. "Good," she says, "now let's talk about—"

"Yellowstone," Helena finishes her sentence.

Despite telling her repeatedly that it did not happen, the topic seems to come up a lot in their sessions. And like every other thing about Helena, Dr Baker has a perverse fascination towards it. This, more than others.

"Last time you were telling me about how Myka challenged you. How did she do that?"

"She said," every time she falls asleep, she dreams of it. That's why she hasn't slept. "Shoot me. Shoot me now! She called me coward."

"What is so amusing about it?" Dr Baker asks.

Her smile did not go unnoticed, it seems. "I was afraid. It wasn't until then that I realized it. See, I thought I was being brave for the world. Standing right at the center where it is about to crumble for the greater good."

"What happened next?"

"Then I shot her."

Every day, she wishes for it to not be true. She wishes that she really is mad. But the memory is too vivid. This practice of recalling it over and over again is not helping. And the nightmares make it worse.

"Why?"

"Because she asked for it," she knows it is not a good reason. Dr Baker gives her that look. The skeptical one that tells her she isn't digging deep enough. That it isn't the honest truth. "And I wanted to prove that I wasn't a coward."

"But why are we still here?" Dr Baker asks. "Why isn't the world experiencing a mini ice age which you claimed to be the consequence of using the Minoan Trident?"

"Because I didn't do it."

"And why is that?"

"Because I couldn't look her in the eyes," she tells Dr Baker. "I closed my eyes."

She only opened them when she felt Myka's body on her. And she fell with it. Her knees were too weak to support them both.

Dr Baker taps her watch. "Looks like our time is up."

It's funny because she thought her time was up a long time ago.

...

She asked around about the scream during lunch to find its source. There are three contradictory accounts of it. One claimed that the scream came from the backyard, another said it came from the sky and her favorite; it came from everywhere. The most plausible answer would be the backyard. The sky could refer to something happening on the second floor or roof. And everywhere might just mean that someone has had voices in their head for too long, they can't separate between the real ones and the imaginary ones.

Helena chose the backyard as it is the most accessible out of the three. She has not found anything except Hansel(real name: George)'s secret hiding place for his collection of funny looking rocks. He said that they are for when he goes looking for Gretel.

As her attempt to find clues from the backyard was futile, she is now waiting for the right moment to get to the stairs. It is proving to be quite difficult as there is always someone going up and down the stairs.

After waiting for another hour, the area near the stairs finally clears.

But as she steps onto the first step, someone taps her shoulder.

"Second floor is off limits to patients," the person tells her.

She puts on her best confused look to give an impression that she didn't know what she was doing. But when she turns around, she finds that she didn't need to fake it after all because the sight before her is impossible. She grabs a patient who is walking by them.

"Do you see her?" she asks him.

The patient looks carefully at the woman standing before them.

"I see her," he says.

"What are you here for?" she asks because if he is schizophrenic, his observation might not be so reliable.

"I'm bipolar. How about him?" he asks. "Do you want to ask me if I see him?"

Helena looks to where the bipolar man is pointing.

"No," she says. Although it is unlikely for him to be here, it's not impossible because she knows Pete is alive.

Her gaze shifts back to the woman. But her. She can't be here. She is dead.

Helena killed her three months ago. She is the reason Helena has had very little sleep for the past three months.

"Myka?" she voices out the name uncertainly.

"I'm sorry. Who is Myka?"

...

So far what she has found out is that someone is definitely missing but no one knows who it is. People say that nothing has changed but they have this lingering feeling that something or someone is missing. Just like her.

It is a rare occasion in the real world that everyone agrees on something. It is rarer in here. With their hallucinations and their biased interpretations, still everyone agrees that they feel loss. If only they could figure out what it is. But only patients admit to this. She suspects the staffs refuses to admit that they have the same feeling for fear they are turning into the crazy people they work with every day.

"But does that mean you admit that you're not right in the head?" bipolar man asks her.

He is helping her with her investigation. He is quite a resourceful man.

"I suppose so," she says. "Aren't you?"

He helped her get to the second floor.

"No, my head's fine. I mean who's to say it's me that's not right," he says. "Maybe it's everyone else. It's just that there are more of them than me. Maybe if there are more people like me, they'll be the ones that need fixing."

There are a total of eight rooms up there; four labs, a study, a bedroom, a kitchen and what seems to be a sitting room.

The sitting room has a beige three seater sofa, green two seater sofa and a red coffee table. There are various items on the coffee table. The things which she can remember are a small bottle of perfume, a tea set and a stack of old newspaper. There is a portrait of a bearded man on the wall. And there is box next to the three seater sofa.

In the kitchen, there is an oven that is so old, it might have come from her time. All the glasses and mugs next to the sink aren't of the same shapes or sizes. There is only one frying pan in the whole kitchen. She found a bottle of milk in the fridge that is ten years past its expiry date but still looks and smells fine.

There is a huge shelf in the study with no books. In fact, all the books are placed on the desk. She remembers seeing a first edition of Newton's Principia. The drapes in the room do not match. There is a letter opener that is stuck in the wall. Upon seeing it, bipolar man wanted to take it out but she stopped him. Her years as a Warehouse agent have made her wary of touching any objects without protective gloves especially ones that look as suspicious as the letter opener.

The bedroom looks fine. Everything seems to be in place except the night lamp which was placed on top of the chest drawers instead of the bedside table.

"You know what's funny about the second floor?" bipolar man asks. "Besides the labs, the other rooms appear to be something they are not."

She laughs dryly. "These are rooms you are talking about?" But she knows what he meant.

She is not usually this slow at figuring things out. She supposes part of her really wishes that she had imagined her whole life and didn't do all those bad things she did.

"Just think about it," he says. "For a study, the room sure lacks pens. There's no other pots and pans besides that lonely frying pan on the stove in the kitchen. And that living room is just very badly decorated."

"How about the bedroom?" she asks, just to see if he noticed the out of place lamp.

"That might just be a bedroom. So do you see?"

She does.

Ever since Pete and Myka appeared, she has been reassessing her situation. Dr Baker said that she might have passed them by on some street or a mall.

"The world is smaller than you think," she had said, "and that one brief encounter was all it took for you to create these characters in your fantasy."

Why not believe in this easier reality? In this reality, she did not beat anyone to death. She did not witness her daughter die forty six times. She was not in suspended animation for more than a century, drowning in her guilt. And the lives of those poor boys in Egypt weren't wasted on her.

In this reality, Myka is alive. She is a nurse, not a Warehouse agent. A safe occupation that doesn't try to kill her or drive her insane or seduces her to evil.

But when she saw the second floor, she realized that it is too good to be true. She can't absolve her sins that easily.

"They are for storage," she says suddenly, halting whatever it is bipolar man is talking about.

"What?" he has obviously moved on from their conversation about the second floor.

"The rooms," she clarifies, "they're for storage. And I think I know the person who can tell us all about it."

...

She goes to Pete instead of Myka.

She still has the nightmares when she accidentally falls asleep. So even after three days, she still can't get used to Myka being alive and well. When she sees her, it feels like seeing a ghost.

"I know," she tells Pete.

"And what do you know, Emily?" Pete is not really good at hiding her emotions. He tries to act nonchalant but she can see his anger. It shows through his clenched fists.

"I know you want to punch me," she says and for a second, she thinks that he would really do it. She would let him. She deserves it. He clenches his fists tighter, if that is possible. When he doesn't make a move, she continues, "I also know about the artifacts on the second floor. What is this place, Pete? And what exactly are you and Myka doing here?"

"Oh, besides watching you not paying for what you did? I guess you used the ol' insanity plea, huh?"

She does not tell Pete that she had no idea how she ended up here, let alone have a say in it.

Pete makes a move to leave.

"I bet you don't even know what is going on," she says before he could leave. It is a wild guess but it seems to be working as he turns back around.

"Tell me what you know," he says.

"And why should I tell you?" She is testing the waters. She wants to see how much he trusts (or distrusts) her.

"No," he shakes his. "No quid pro quo. You either help me or you don't."

It is not surprising that he doesn't leave any wiggle room for his distrust in her.

So she tells him about the scream at 3.29 a.m. on Tuesday. She tells him about the person who might or might not be missing. And she tells him about the feeling of loss everyone seems to be having.

He laughs. "That's the useful information you have?"

"Well, it is better than nothing," she says.

"No, nothing is better than your crackpot theories. You really are crazy, aren't you?" He then scoffs, "I bet this person you're looking for doesn't even exist."

"Wait, what did you say?"

"You're crazy."

"No, after that."

"This person you're looking for does not exist."

"Exactly," she says.

"Exactly what?"

She has been reading up on the scientific advances of the past hundred years. The things that they have discovered are remarkable. In her time, those kinds of ideas can only be found in science fiction. Actually, they are weirder than science fiction from her time.

She drags him up to the second floor and then into the "sitting room" there.

"Here it is."

She shows him the box.

"What is it?"

"Have you heard of Schrödinger's cat?"

"Is Schrödinger a patient here?"

"No, he was a physicist. He was famous for his equation that is monumental to quantum mechanics."

When Pete still looks like he has no clue what she is talking about, she goes on to explain that he came up with a thought experiment to prove by contradiction the implication of quantum mechanics on a macroscopic level.

"The experiment is conducted in box that allows a cat to be both alive and date," she explains.

"That is ridiculous," says Pete.

"That is what Schrödinger said but in 1979," she tells him, "there is a Phillip Douglas who claims to have made this box. But he said that he can't show the cat to anyone."

"Why?"

"Because if he showed it to someone, the cat will have been observed which will consequently collapse its wave function and the cat is no longer both dead and alive anymore."

"So what does the box sound like?" she asks Pete.

"It can't be an artifact."

"But it is and it's here."

"So what do we do?" Pete asks.

"We open the box."

She lets out a sigh of relief when they find the box empty.

"What is that for?" Pete asks

"I believe that the cat is in a state of inexistence, or at least not in the way that we perceive existence. But instead of its wave function being collapsed when it is observed, the opposite happens."

"Do you mean…" Pete leaves the question hanging.

"Yes, we will cease to exist if we saw the cat."

"You should have told me that earlier!" he exclaims.

"I was curious." He glares at her. "Besides, I expected it."

"So what do we do now?"

"We find the cat."

"But you said—"

"Sooner or later, the cat will run into someone else. Then another person the next day or the next second until finally, everyone disappears. Would you like that to happen?"

"But if we disappear, that will happen anyway," Pete says.

He does have a good point.

"Well, we should find the person who brought this box here then."

...

They have this silent agreement that they will not involve Myka in their collaboration. Bipolar man joins them sometimes. Pete calls him her stalker friend.

They talked to the person who was affected by the box. He is a very miserable man. He told them he used to have a family. But one day, they were all gone. And everyone told him he never did have a family. That he imagined them.

She knows how that feels like. To be told that your entire life is a lie.

He remembers his family somehow. He described them with great detail.

He cried when they said they believe him.

"It's a silly notion," he had said, "but maybe if more people believed in them, they would spring into existence."

"Do you think that can work?" Pete asks. "If we believe that all these people who disappeared exist, then they'd come back."

"I don't think so," bipolar man says. "I believed in Santa Claus when I was a kid but I never got that mountain bike I wanted when I was eleven."

Pete ignores his remark. "He did mention seeing a cat."

"Maybe it is a different cat," Helena says.

"I have a cat," bipolar man says. "But I never touch him because I'm allergic."

"Pete."

They all turn to the voice. It's Myka.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm just," Pete says. He is taking too long to think of a lie. Myka will know. "Helping these patients find their rooms."

She glances at Helena and bipolar man. She is going to call Pete on his lie. But to Helena's surprise, she just says to Pete, "Okay. I'll just ask someone else to help me out."

"You sure?" Pete asks.

"Yep," she says. "I think I saw Robert on my way here. I'm pretty sure he's not busy."

"Can I ask you a question?" Pete says after Myka has left.

"Of course."

"Why do you look at her like that?"

"Like what?" Helena asks.

"Like you're scared," bipolar man helpfully answers for Pete.

Pete nods.

"It's obvious, isn't it? I killed her."

Pete seems confused by her answer.

"You do realize that she's alive," he says.

"Thanks to whatever artifact you used to bring her back."

"No, H.G.," he says. Is that sympathy in his tone? Now, that is something she does not expect Pete to have for her. "She's alive because you never killed her. Don't you remember? You couldn't kill her. That's why we're all still here."

"Then," she pauses. She waits for the overwhelming anger to surface. It should because it means her mind has been tempered with. But it doesn't. Instead, this thought echoes in her mind, "It is a fitting punishment, don't you think?"

There is that sympathy again. It's weird. She is used to Pete hating her. It is making her rather uncomfortable. Fortunately, the sympathy does not linger for too long.

"You know what?" he says suddenly. "I'll ask Myka and Artie about the Schnapps' cat. Maybe they know something about it."

"It's Schrödinger," she corrects him.

"Yeah, they'll know," he says. "See you tomorrow?"

She nods.

"Bye, Pete," bipolar man says.

...

Her eyes are getting heavier by the minute. Someone must have drugged her. She could usually go without sleep for at least thirty six hours. It has only been twenty hours since the last time she slept. She should not be feeling this drowsy.

She has not fallen asleep yet when they carry her out of her room. She can barely move her limbs. She tries hard to keep her eyes open so she could at least see her abductors but even that is futile as her vision has become hazy.

She hears them say something about a coin. One of the voices sounds familiar. They mention agents.

"…turn her back," she can only hear pieces of what they are saying, "…lake."

After sometime, she feels herself being placed on some cold metal. She must be in one of the labs on the second floor.

Everything goes dark for a moment. When she wakes up again, it is because of a loud crash. She still cannot see very clearly. There is a lot of yelling.

Then she falls asleep again.

...

"Shoot me," Myka says. Her hand is still holding Helena's. She has just placed a gun in Helena's hand, even forced Helena's finger to rest on the trigger and aimed it on her forehead. "Shoot me now."

Helena has never liked being challenged. When she was fifteen, a boy challenged her to jump from the balcony of his house. She accepted it and broke her leg because of it. Her father was furious. She had to stay in bed for two months and those two months were pure agony not because of the pain but because of the scolding she had to endure every single day.

"Not like that. Not like a coward."

Oh, she is no coward. She has a plan and she intends to see it through. And if it means having to kill one person by her own hands, then she will do it.

But why must it be Myka?

She remembers the first time she met Myka, she was bickering with Pete. She had figured they must be easy to deceive. And she was right. It still makes her laugh when she thinks about. She also likes to tease Myka about it. Myka always told her it was because she had a slight advantage over them, being a woman when they expected her to be a man.

"Did the obvious adoration falter after you discovered that little information?" she asked Myka one day.

"I was intrigued."

"Are you sure that is all?"

"Oh, there's more," Myka had looked directly in her eyes when she said that.

That was when she stopped the flirting because that was the moment when realized she had more than platonic feelings towards Myka. She had a plan. And getting emotionally attached to someone will only serve to hold her back.

"Look me in the eyes."

She couldn't. Every time her finger moves to pull the trigger, she diverts her eyes and stops herself.

Finally, she decides that the best way to do it is by closing her eyes.

"Do it!" Myka yells.

She almost pulls the trigger when she suddenly thinks, this is wrong. It did not happen this way.

"Do it!" Myka yells again. She grabs her hand. "Come on. Do it. You know you shot me. Right here." She presses the gun hard on her forehead. "Do you remember? Of course you do." She smiles slyly. "And you always will."

Then she pushes Helena's finger against the trigger.

"No!" Helena screams.

...

"H.G.," someone calls her. "H.G."

It is a little hard to hear with all the screaming. Then she realizes that she is the one who is screaming and stops it. She opens her eyes and finds Pete staring back at her.

"Pete," she says.

"Yeah."

"What are you doing in my room?"

"Oh," he steps back as he realizes how close he is to her, "um, you've been out for two days. We've been taking turns watching over you."

"What happened?" she asks.

Pete sighs. "It's kind of a long story. And you just woke up."

"No, tell me," she insists. "I have had plenty of rest, I'm sure a little bit of storytelling will not wear me down."

That night, Pete had consulted Myka about the box and the cat. It turned out Myka already knew about it. She did not tell Pete because she wanted to investigate something else. Something that involved Helena. She knew Pete would not agree. Pete would have caught the cat and put it where it belongs which meant they will have no reason to remain at the hospital any longer.

That night was the night that Myka planned to confront the person who put Helena in the mental hospital.

"You were living as a woman called Emily Lake for two and a half years before you were sent here," Pete tells her. "That was the Regents' idea. Then you got paranoid and ran away which put you in the Warehouse's most wanted list."

She was brought to the mental hospital a few months ago with her memories somehow restored. And the Janus Coin had conveniently disappeared so they could not make her be Emily Lake again.

"Myka was keeping tabs on you," Pete explains. "Or Emily Lake."

Myka found out where she was and when the Warehouse security system warned them about the Schrodinger's cat, Myka jumped at the opportunity to investigate what had really happened to her. She thought it was peculiar that Helena's memory was restored just like that.

The culprit was Myka's sister, Tracy or better known as Dr Baker. She manipulated the Janus Coin to add the memory of Helena killing Myka. That night she wanted to turn Helena back into Emily Lake. She knew Myka was getting closer to the truth.

"I thought I hated you," Pete says. "But it only goes as far as punching you in the face. What Tracy did to you, that's really twisted."

That is why she always wanted to talk about Yellowstone. The satisfied look Helena always saw on Dr Baker after their sessions was not because she had gotten more material for her book. Tracy was reveling in her pain. The pain that she had bestowed upon Helena as punishment for what she did to Myka.

"What happened to her?" Helena asks Pete.

"Technically, she didn't do anything wrong."

"But she stole the Janus Coin."

"No," Pete says. "Well, not to the Regents. She had someone else confess to it."

"So she is still working for the Warehouse?"

Pete nods.

"And what will happen to me? Am I going back to being Emily Lake?"

"They don't know yet because from what I heard, you still can kick some ass even as Emily Lake. But I don't think it's such a bad idea."

"What do you mean?"

"We can't figure out how to undo the whole you killing Myka from your memory so it will always feel real even though you know it's not."

So she has to choose between living with Myka's blood on her hands, in her mind that is, for the rest of her life or be someone else completely. Someone who sounds nothing like her.

"I'd flip a coin if I were you," Pete says, smiling. "Because you know, it's a coin, the artifact…no?"

Helena shakes her head.

"Too inappropriate?"

She nods.

"Geez, tough crowd," he says.

...

Myka doesn't talk to her. Myka talks to her through Pete. Pete has become their messenger for the past three days.

When she decided what she wanted to do or rather who she wanted to be, she told Pete. Then Pete told Myka. Myka came up with the plan and told Pete. And Pete told her.

Pete never explicitly told her that it is Myka's idea but she knows. Pete doesn't care enough about her to come up with such an elaborate plan to ensure her safety.

Today is the day that she will give her body to Emily Lake.

Myka knows that Tracy would not let her go easily even as Emily Lake. So after her consciousness has been stored in the Janus Coin and Emily Lake has taken over her body, Miss Lake will be sent to some undisclosed location that only Pete's mother and two Warehouse operatives know. The two operatives will be monitoring Miss Lake's activity in case she has a hankering for destroying the world.

Myka and Pete don't know where she is going. They want to keep the number of people who know Miss Lake's location minimal. The less people know, the safer she will be.

"Wait," Helena says, taking her hand away. "Did you catch the Schrödinger's cat?" She almost forgets about it. The last three days have been hectic and her mind was occupied by whether or not to forgo her right to her own body.

"It's been with Walter all along," Pete says.

"Who is Walter?" she asks.

"Walter Sykes, your stalker friend."

"Then, how did you catch it?"

"You were wrong," Pete says, smirking. He likes telling her that she is wrong. "We can look at the cat but we can't touch it."

"She was right about the cat being in a state of inexistence," Myka interjects.

Helena smiles. Finally. "She speaks."

Myka ignores her remark. "Your palm, please."

"I have a better idea," Helena says. She takes one of the gloves on the table and takes the Janus coin from Myka.

"What are you doing?" Pete asks.

"I am following your advice."

She places the coin on the tip of her thumb nail.

"You know it doesn't matter where it lands, right?"

"I know," she says. Then, she flips the coin.

"Goodbye, Helena," Myka says as the coin lands on her palm.

"Goodbye," she mutters.

...

She remembers and she doesn't forget.

She remembers being Emily Lake and she doesn't forget being H.G. Wells.

She did not tell Pete and Myka. She was not lying when she told them that she is Emily Lake. She is Emily Lake. And she is also H.G. Wells.

It is better this way. This way, Myka can stop looking after her and move on with her life. No 150 year old maniacal writer or a naive school teacher to protect from her big bad sister anymore. It is the right thing to do.

But who is she kidding? If she really wanted that to happen, she should have stayed put. It is in her nature to seek trouble. And it is quite difficult to avoid a Warehouse agent when looking for artifacts.

When she runs into Myka, she assumes Emily's personality. Myka is friendlier to Emily. Helena thinks it is because Emily has not done anything wrong. Emily says it is simply because Myka fancies her more. Helena can't prove her wrong because it will mean telling Myka the truth.

Myka will find out sooner or later when someone notices that the Janus Coin is empty. She doesn't make it a habit to seek the same artifact as Myka and Pete. But she vows that if she ever meets Myka again, she will tell the truth and then apologize profusely.

That is all she can do.


End file.
